“Rebellious yesterday, heroic forever,” read a sign the cortege passed on entering the city – Castro’s words displayed as a mark of respect for the place that was the beating heart of his revolutionary war.

As night fell thousands packed the Plaza Antonio Maceo to pay tribute – among them Luiz Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, former presidents of Brazil, and the presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and the Congo.

Diego Maradona, the Argentine footballer taken under Castro’s wing to show off Cuba's healthcare system when he was battling drug addiction, described Castro, before the ceremony, as being his “second father.”

“Since recovering from my illness, I replay his words of support in my head all the time,” said Maradona, a friend of Castro’s since his first visit to the island in 1986.

Maradona and Castro together in 2002

“The world has lost a true leader. He cared so much about Cubans. Sometimes we’d sit up talking about football until four or five in the morning, and the next day I’d be sleeping late – but he’d be up early working for the people.”

Throughout the last week, those people were out in force, as the Cuban government staged a show of unity and devotion in a final farewell to “el comandante”.

Streets across the country were paralysed as “the caravan of freedom” passed through – retracing the steps of Castro’s victorious march from Santiago into Havana in 1959.

Soldiers guarded the bridges overnight before the caravan passed; Cuba’s leaders, who in their guerrilla days were themselves experts in sabotage, could not leave anything to chance.

And in the towns through which the convoy passed, chants of “Viva Fidel!” rose into the air. Trunks of banana plants had been turned into flower pots to line the route, and giant Cuban flags hung from the houses.

“Cubans are Fidelistas to the death,” said Margalis Farias Lopez, 58, sitting outside Che Guevara’s mausoleum in the town of Santa Clara. “I was born with the revolution. And to be here now, and to see his procession – it means everything to me.”

State television showed nothing but live scenes from the procession – interspersed with reflections from those who met Castro, and clips of his speeches.

In houses across the land, Cubans – especially the older generation – were transfixed.

Luis Felipe Soto Carvallosa, 91, sat on his rocking chair in the town of Banes, providing a running commentary as the cortege rolled through the country. He had fought with Che in the Sierra Maestra mountains, and knew Fidel.

At times tearful, he vowed that Castro’s death would not change Cuba. “The change was made when the revolution was won,” he said.

On Sunday Castro will be laid to rest at 7am in Santiago’s cemetery next to Jose Marti, Cuba’s independence hero.